Chapter 17

Borner stood up and strode out of the room debating if he should feel elated or depressed. The young woman had learned how to give good speeches, he would give her that much. He looked up from his musing to witness a slight smile and a good wink.

“Really?” Borner asked with a sense of incredulity in his voice.

“The time may be short for us, and I am not getting any younger,” Andela said. “Is it not every man’s fantasy to bed the incarnation of Denarah?”

“When you put it that way,” Borner said. Taking her arm in his as they walked down the hallway, “What blood thumping believer could resist? Nonetheless, there would be a lot of pressure on me to perform if I were to bed the living goddess. I’ve got enough pressure already. Would you mind terribly if just the two of us tangled in the sheets and we left the goddess to her own devisings?”

“Do you ever put aside your forays into heresy?” she asked with more seriousness than he expected.

“What the goddess knows about me she has already reconciled,” Borner said, stopping and turning to face her. He put his hands on her arms. “I may evade and dodge at times because I’m insecure, but I do not lie: not to the gods, not to my friends, and especially not to you. But if I am to be an oracle, I reserve the right to challenge the integrity of the gods. When you hear heresy in my words, it means that I have touched your own deep-seated doubts. When I gift you heresy, I am giving you the most precious offering I have, truths that I hope will sustain you. Please accept my gifts.”

Andela raised her hands to grasp his face. “I don’t know whether you are a genius or insane, but you fill my spirit like the goddess promises all of her followers.”

Borner smiled up to his eye sockets. “She knows; and now you know that what quenches my trembling spirit is you, an amazing woman, full of spark and bursting with life. I’m sure that as long as you are willing to put up with me, the goddess will be willing as well.”

“Tangling in the sheets can be an act of prayer,” Andela said, pointing her finger at him as they turned to walk again arm in arm. “Let us find a worthy chamber and give voice to words of thanksgiving.”

Borner’s pants were tight and painful again, but his smile was devious. “I’ve never heard it called thanksgiving before, yet I do appreciate a well voiced ‘Praised Be.’ Let us don a penitent spirit and give whole sacrifice at the altar of the goddess; libations, supplications on our knees, prostrations on our backs, adorations with our lips, and lest we forget, benedictions as we bend our bodies in prayer.”

“Oh my! aAre you offering me the promise of ecclesiastical concourse?” Andela said. Her lascivious grin was infectious. “If so, I expect absolute obedience before the gates of truth with mouth and tongue and lips of purest intent.”

“With self-sacrifice, I will devote myself with paeans of prayers,” Borner said, placing his free hand over his heart. “I need not remind you that the sacred rites must be observed in full. All attention is due when you stand before the pillar of truth. Am I laying it on a bit too thickly?”

“A wee bit, I think,” She said. “Certainly, you’ve proven that my office does not hold back your tongue. At this point, you could just throw me on the bed and have your way with me without protest.”

“What fun would that be?” Borner said as showed her to the door of his room. “I think I’ve earned a few loud protests.”

Andela had fallen asleep with her arm across his belly and her head resting on his chest. Borner expected her to roll over in a little bit for the softer comfort of a pillow, but while he had her draped across him, he was determined to enjoy the intimacy.

Oddly, his mind drifted back to the usually unyielding call of the Void, that seductive darkness that called upon him to suicide. The gasp had sounded all too human when Andela’s touch extinguished it last. Was it a part of him, the part that was frightened to the core to be what he was becoming - a mouthpiece of religious dictate? Was it survivor’s guilt? Was it a mystical attachment of his journey to the River of Life?

Whatever it was, the call acted like a mountaineer’s rope, binding him at the waist, never letting go of him. He was lost among the ridges and peaks whose sides were shrouded in cloud far below. He could not see a way to descend from the heights that he had scaled. Like a hiker threading a slick ridge of a mountain, he saw the abyss of prophet/idol worship on one side and the unending leap into darkness on the other. Thus far, he continued to walk forward on the poorly visible path. Thunder and lightning roiled above, rain and fog obscured the path. For all his confidence in his day-to-day abilities, he was frightened.

Andela snorted slightly, her breath tickling the hairs on his chest. The little event evaporated the bleakness of his thoughts. In a darkness hard enough to break hope, a lover’s smallest gesture cracked the brittle bonds that held his eyes shut. She was beauty and what she did, that was beautiful as well.

He let the tears run down his face again. They felt good this time, as if they were a reward for continuing forward. He wanted to stroke her hair but his hand wavered, fearing that the act would wake her.

Borner reminded himself that too much self-reflection was a trap, too. All too selfish or all too selfless were both paths to the same dead end. They led to lives of self-imposed slavery of the spirit. Here he lay, satiated with self-reflection for the moment, his lover asleep and his body lazily stirring.

He recollected an ancient story of two friends, one who sought immortality and the other who sought only the bonding of undying friendship. Towards the end of their terrible journey to the reaches of the gods, the first, the one who sought immortality, was rebuffed and broken, given over to his friend who loved him still. The second was granted immortality and thereby gained the jealous hatred of his friend. The first one died in his futile efforts to kill his loyal, now immortal friend, breaking forever the heart of the second for whom immortality became a curse. Both were a lesson in hubris.

Borner had always found the tale excessively cruel, even though the story invoked deep truths of the human condition. In these weak hours of the morning before the onslaught of human folly and response, the lessons resounded deeply in his thoughts. At this time tomorrow, the little world of Gemma would be a radically different place. The people would be the same but their place, if they were still alive, would be irrevocably altered.

Andela believed in her goddess and Kanner believed in his god; Borner envied both of his friends their devotion and faith. He would never have that stalwart faith again. Timmaus was addicted to the roll of the proverbial dice, trusting his faculties and his skills. Again, Borner was envious. Yet all three looked up to him as their prophet, maybe as their totem; they desired his friendship and presence in their lives despite what he was not. They were good company, but prophecy was a merciless bitch, leaving no accounting for friends and feelings. Like immortality, the gift could easily be revealed as a curse, leaving him apart from these mortals. He had his suspicions that happy endings were hard to come by.

Borner gave in to his desire, lightly stroking her hair with his fingertips. If she awoke, he would claim youthful indulgence. Her breath felt warm and moist on his skin, so full of life. One of her breasts was pressed against him too and he relished the pebbly feel of her nipple. He rolled his chest the littlest bit just to feel it. These simple pleasures of intimacy bolstered his resolve, soothing his doubts and easing his anxiety.